Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-29
DUCK pEcoYING IS A FINE ART.
How the Business is Done in the Country
Across the Sea.

DUCK DEC0YING IS A FINE ART.
How the Business is Done in the Country
Across the Sea.
Something must be done in these bad
times. Make JAM" said Mr.. Gladstone
once; but unfortunately this year there is
such a glut OF fruit that the figures from
Jam are as much on the wrong side as those
from wheat Catch wild ducks, says Sir
r. Payne Gallwey; and if We could insure
such takes as the Frieslanders get-from
one sea-decoy at the mouth of the Mas,
owned by Mynheer van Hecken, the yearly
take is 1000 head, many of which are sent
of alive; in the decoy on the isle of Am
run, North Friesland, 1,500 ducks, chiefly
pintail, were taken in one day-we should
certainly make it pay.
1t does not need big bit of land. The
Norfolk bird catchers, accustomed to the
Broads," laughed at George Shelton OF
Friskney in Lincoln, who, in 1907, made
the first regular I" decoy' in Norfolk, and
was content with two acres. They left oil
laughing when they found that the takes in
this little puddle" averaged over fifty
head per night. Many of the best decoys
are smaller than Skeletons. You may
make-one on your three acres and still
reserve grass enough for the COW. What
YOU will want is seclusion. Ducks don't
Ike railways putting billy, the steam
thrashing machine is as hateful to them as
it is to high-mettled colt. Shooting dis
turbs them-;he Dutch law forbids gun
to be fred within a thousands yards of a
decoy Then, too, your land must be wet,
or the right kind of food will not be forth
coming; and your decoy must be en-
bosomed in wood, though that is q second
airy consideration. for willow and privet
grow apace and reed screens which you
will always have to use If you work the
thing scientifically, will stand in the stead
of other shelter till the trees have come on.
You might think that, what with drainage,
and manufactures. and the noise of trains,
great part of England was wholly unfit
for decoy work but one of our best decoys
is at Hale. only nine miles from Liverpool
and seven from Prescott. Along the Ian
cashire coast there are any number of
places ike Hale; and even inland, in what
we think Of as d continuous mass OF mills
and houses, there are bits of lonely I'M
drained moorland admirably suited to the
purpose.
In all England there are only thirty
eight decOys In Essex alone where now
there are three, there used to be thirty. In
Lincoln they have gone down from twenty
SIX to one. Suffolk, in fact, and Noting
ham, are the only counties where the pur-
suit OF decoying is at all comparable with
its past. In the former, seven decoys are
working where there were fourteen early
in the century; in Notts there never We're
more than four, OF which three are still
kept up.
Scotland never had any decoys; in Ire
land there are but three in use, against
twenty-five known to have existed. OF
these one is historic, that which existed at
Parteen, two miles from Limerick. In
" Donelly's Tour" C16S1) this is mentioned
as great decoy belonging to James Fitz-
gerald, of the Middle Temple, Esquire :"
Sir R. Gallwey thinks that that made in
ST James Park by the Dutchman, Sydney
Hilcus, for Charles the Second, in 1865,
was one of the earliest English decoys so
that the art was not long in making its
way to the Shannon. Ireland, however,
ought 10 be the home of decoying. The
| marshes of the Fergus, between Ennis and
Limerick the shores of the Shannon estu-
ary, those of the many shallow loughs, like
Sheephaven on the north coast are as full
as they can be of birds; and there can be
no reason why the Irish should not catch
them as well as the English fen-men used
to do or the Dutch do still.
Farming is in a transition state, and it
takes long time to get us out of our old
corn growing, big farming groove. By and
by we shall come to think more of small
industries-p0ultrY, butter, and, not least,
decoS ing. All you need to do is to stipu-
late that your decoy shall count among the
things for which you are to get compensa-
ton when your lease has run out and
The cost of keeping up, if you do the de-
noyipu Yourself is very trif1ipU
1t is large IF" Few farmers would
| like TO take the trouble to set the decoy-dog
| to work, and to watch behind the screens
! while he runs in front of the first screen.
| behind the next, and so on, till the ducks
| tmost inquisitive of birds) are fairly wild
with excitement and swim after him up
the decoy pipe, especially if doggie has a
| fox's brush tied to his tail and a red rag
about his middle.
Silly things these ducks Yet it is not
| always that they are so silly. Sometimes
they won't enter the pipe at all. The de-
coy man may throw his handfuls of grain :;
| the decoy-ducks may swim up and eat it,
showing the way to their wild friends; the
| dog may play his pfanks to perfection,
| but if dilly is not in the mind. or if he has
| fed to repletion the night before. he will
most proyokingly refuse to come and be
called stale" the secret usually being that
they have seen your dog often enough to
| know that he is only commonplace dog,
not a marvellous nonsuch, for the sake of
| investigating whom duck might deem it
well worth while TO run into perl.
Once, when decoy-owner had tried all
his own dogs in vain, lady was persuaded
to start her pug al the pipes mouth and to
| signal to him from close by the tunnel net.
! Pug was very fat, with a peculiar twist in
| his tail: altogether, he was irresistible
The ducks tore up the pipe, and a grand
catch was the result. OF course the dog
should never look back at the ducks, else
| they will think he means fight, and, their
cowaTdice being greater even than their
curiosity, they will at once turn tail. He
| must be perfectly silent, too: the least
whimper would brighten them of, not for
that time only, but for ever and aye
| Cats and ferrets are sometimes used, hut
| they are less manageable than dogs. Sir
| L Gailwey tells how he once borrowed an
| orGan-grinders monkey. after whom the
| ducks flew in SxarnS, but soon Jacko sprang
| to the top eff screen, grinned at his pursu-
| ers, and began cracking The nuts with
| which be bad been paid beforehand. No
wonder every bird fed, not only out Of the
| pipe, hut off The decoy. And, to crown all,
| jaCkO tumbled INTO the water and nearly
died Of cold and fright. OF course, when
| the ducks have been enticed some four
yards up the pipe the decoy-man shows
| himself at lis mouth. What are they to
| do? Death is behind them anything is
better than ia ing their grim enemy. True,
| they are in covered ditch, but curying
round as it does, it seems open at the far
end Anyhow, they will try and so they
scurry forward, snd into the tunnel net. OF
which the man or his assistant quickly
closes the valve, and then nothing remains
| but TO dispatch the victims one by one.
| The decoy-ducks swim down the moment
| they see the man. They are not afraid of
him; indeed, they expect another feed,
and he takes care that their expectation is
| fulfilled. 1t ought to be said on their be-
half that they do not Intentionally deceive
| their kinsmen. They simply swim up the
pipe after the dainty fare which the man
keeps scattering in front of them. You
cannot blame them, and yet their conduct
brings death to those whom it leads for
| ward.-AH the Year Round.
YES, Hoods Sarsaparilla is really pc